He dozed a little and dreamed of his mother. He was back in childhood, standing with bare feet in an icy passage, and she was screaming at Harriet for refusing to marry Mr. Coble. He went through all the old agony of these frequent domestic tragedies. But he did not feel cold so much as hungry, and breakfast was being delayed by the squabble. He heard Daisy, equally aggrieved, lowing in the barn. In the face of the advantages of the Coble marriage it did seem unreasonable of Harriet to stick to Bully Preep, who would probably beat her. He awoke with a sensation of relief, which was instantly exchanged for a new worry. Ought he to tell the Cobles about his mother, supposing he really thought of—But no; he did not think of—And, in any case, there was no use in raking up unpleasant matters. He had not inherited her dementia; it was not in her blood; it had grown up gradually from the sad, narrow circumstances of her lot; it was his father that he took after. He was not mad; he was more likely to go mad if he continued his terrible solitary struggle. Unless, indeed—and here came a sudden vision of a scene that had lain forgotten for long years—unless, indeed, Mad Peggy had been right! Mad Matt! Oh no, it was madness to attach any meaning to the Water-Drinker’s words. Never had he felt so sane. He got up and looked into the dusty glass on the wash-stand. That was not the face of a madman. She had prophesied he would never be happy—never, never! He would thirst and thirst for happiness, but never would he quench his thirst. Ah, the crazy creature was right there, anyhow. He watched with curious interest the tears rolling down the face in the mirror. Well, be it so! He was strong, he could dispense with happiness. He would not go to the Cobles’ that evening. To-morrow he would leave Halifax, and join his folks in Cobequid at last. They would all live out their lives together—poor victims of a common destiny. He would work on the farm, he would rent more land, he would make it pay. His uncle had been right all along. Why had he not taken his advice and stayed on at Cattermole’s farm? Ah, well, his dream of Art was over now. He was getting on in years; the energy had been buffeted out of him. One could not always be young and ambitious. He would never be famous now; he would toil obscurely like his brothers and sisters, and his bones would lie with theirs in the little lonesome church-yard among the pines. It did not matter; nothing mattered. Death would shovel them all away soon enough.
He lay down on the bed again. Near it stood a wash-stand with a piece of ragged sponge upon it. His eye noted a patch of light on the sponge, and he wondered how the sunshine had got there. Then he perceived the yellow patch was only a reflection from the water-bottle, and his thoughts turned to the problem of painting sunlight by optical illusion. He thought of Cornpepper and the fellows and all the happy discussions he had had in London. The afternoon waned into evening; the patch of mock sunshine faded; the shadows gathered, shrouding the walls with mystery.
He grew faint with hunger; in the dusk there opened out a picture of a lamp-lit room with a snowy cloth on its round table, and a plump figure with soft blue eyes presiding over the savory dishes.
The vision drew him. He rose, washed himself carefully, and went out.
A month later, a week before his marriage, Matt Strang journeyed to Cobequid to see his folks, and bid them farewell before leaving for his artistic honey-moon in Europe. He had written the news home, but they could not afford to come to Halifax for the wedding, and so he had promised to run down before starting on his second voyage in search of Art. He alighted from the coach at Cobequid Village overwhelmed with emotion, resolved to walk the rest of the way towards the joyous reunion with his brothers and sisters; he wished to note each familiar landmark—the fields, the farms, the stores, the little meeting-house, all the beloved features of the spacious, scattered wooden metropolis of his childhood. It was almost noon, and the landscape, seen through the waves of hot air rising from the soil, quivered in the heat. The white farmhouses glittered; the paint of the verandas bulged out; the wooden spire of the meeting-house pointed piously to a heaven of stainless blue. In the farm-yards the fowls lolled prostrate on their sides with open mouths and drooping wings, their tongues protruding, their eyes closed, their legs every now and then uneasily stirring up the dust under their wings; the cattle and horses stood deep in pools under the trees. The bumblebees droned sleepily about the wild roses of the way-side, or buzzed among the white-weed and yellow buttercups and dandelions that mottled the hay-fields. The red squirrels chattered on the spruces as they sat shelling cones, their tails curved over their backs; the woodpeckers tapped on the hollow stubs, the blue-jays screamed among the branches; a hawk circled tranquilly upward to a speck, then sailed softly downward with motionless wings outspread. In the fields men were hoeing potatoes, following the slow oxen that dragged the ploughs between the furrows, and heaping up the earth with leisurely, monotonous movements; belated sowers of buckwheat were scattering the triangular grains with a slow, measured, hypnotic motion. In the sultry stores there was nothing doing; now and then a store-keeper in his shirt-sleeves spat solemnly or drawled a lazy monosyllable. Behind a casement a slumbrous old crone snuffed herself. A wagon rumbled dustily beneath the overarching trees. The far-stretching village drowsed in the sun.
High noon. The conches began sounding to call the farm-hands to dinner, and every sign of labor melted away. The languor crept over the young pedestrian. A perception of the futility of ambition flooded his soul like a wave of summer sea, soft and warm and bitter. To pass through life tranquil and obscure, amid the simplicities and sanctities of childish custom, with work and rest, with feast-day and Sunday; to walk in foot-worn ways amid the same fragrant wild-flowers, to the music of the same birds, hand in hand with a daughter of the same soil, to whom every hoar usage and green meadow should be similarly dear; to carry on the chain of the quiet generations, and so pass lingeringly towards a forgotten grave amid humble kinsfolk—were not this sweeter than the trump and glare of Fame, and the ache of ambition, and the loneliness of untrodden footways? He seemed to hear Mad Peggy’s mocking laughter in the distance.
He moved curiously in the direction of the sounds, skirting a new barn-like building which blocked his view, and which he saw from a notice was a Baptist meeting-house, such as his mother had always yearned for; McTavit’s school-house met his gaze, still standing in its field, and in the foreground a mob of boys and girls shouting and laughing with the exuberance of school-children just let out. After a moment he perceived that they were jeering and hooting somebody; then he caught a glimpse of the ungainly figure of a young man in the centre of derision, with a dozen hands playfully pulling and pushing him. The poor butt fell down, and there was a great outburst of hilarious delight. Matt’s blood boiled; he ran quickly forward towards the booing juvenile crowd, which scattered a little at the sight of his flaming countenance.
“You pesky little ——!” he cried. Then his voice failed. With a flash of horror he recognized his brother Billy.
“Boo!” recommenced one of the bigger louts. “Rot-gut rum!”
Matt seized the crutch which lay at the side of the prostrate drunken cripple, and described a threatening circle with it; the pack of children broke up and made off, hooting from a safer distance.